Yes. Transportation accounts for 68% of oil use. The US imports 48% it's oil. Doubling fuel economy would completely eliminate the need for middle eastern oil.
P.S. I ride the bus to work or bike to work every day.
Oil Prices
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Yes. Transportation accounts for 68% of oil use. The US imports 48% it's oil. Doubling fuel economy would completely eliminate the need for middle eastern oil.
P.S. I ride the bus to work or bike to work every day.
approved.
Good post. I want to remember reading that Iran and Venezuela wants to use the Euro instead of the Dollar when it comes to oil. Another thing I read was that a few Latin American, Venezuela among others (need it be said?), countries are thinking of swapping the Dollar, which usually makes up 3/4 of the foreign exchange reserves, to the Euro. THAT is why there's a US wich hunt going on on Chavez.
That was one of Evo Morales's main issues that he adressed at the UN a few days/weeks ago.
Agree that it's good for farmers up here in the north but the third world shouldn't suffer even more because we want to fuel our cars with something that is more enviromentaly friendly that gasoline but has much less energy output.
An ethanol powered engine is 30% less energy effective than an equivalent powered gasoline engine. A better short sollution are diesel engines, which are about 25-30% more energy effective than gasoline equivalents, but can with the a small modification, by changing all rubber fuel lines and gaskets to Vitron, be driven on biodiesel. That is without powerloss in comparison to fossile diesel and with better lubrication (might be mistaken on the lubrication part, that defenetly is true for Straight Vegetable Oil, SVO, or cooking oil if you prefer that term, which need a bit bigger modification of the diesel engine).
The best oil giving plant which has the highest percentage of cellulose and which needs no pestisides, as it is a weed, and can grow further north that rapeseed (that is the most common ethanol/methanol producing plant in central and northern Europe) is hemp, God's gift to mankind (and arguably the most important plant to every nation throughout the last centuries, if not millenias). Politics...
You're not mistaken. Bio-diesel has much better lubricity. Good enough that you can run low-sulfur diesel (sulfur was the lubricity agent used previously and part of the reason diesel has a rep for pollution) in older diesel engines with as little as 10% biodiesel.
Very good stuff. Makes MUCH more sense than ethanol, especially ethanol from corn. We actually agree. Except about the hemp thing. The hemp lobby should kick out all their stoners. Until the lobby stops having 100% overlap with the medicinal marijauna lobby, it will have zero credibility.
Good, I didn't know about the sulfur part (but just the name sulfur has a devilish ring to it..
). 10% bio-diesel mix in normal diesel, B10, does wonders for the bio degradability of it. Instead of taking mother nature ~1000 days it will take about 20-50 (can't give a more exact number as it was several winters ago that I read about this). I belive both petrol and diesel in Sweden have a 4-5% mix of ethanol/methanol in it as it is recuired by law, and it could rise if the government put a little pressure on the auto industry. It is regrettable though that the current gvmnt is thinking about swopping the current klass 1 diesel for the more polluting klass 2 (as it is cheaper).
Don't agree with you on the hemp lobby as unification is always the best way to achieve maximum strength and therefore ability to achieve once goals. Hemp is hemp and it is a wonderful plant in many ways. Peoples prejudices and general knowledge about the herb is what must change and not the denouncement of the medical marijuana lobby. That would only mean the dodgyfication of the same plant and have a negative effect on the hole movement.
Another thing that has helped diesel become really clean in recent few years is the particle filter that some brands equip their cars with. Sadly this filter doesn't work with bio-diesel as it fills up the small holes of the filter as it has a different consistency. The politicians should put some pressure on the industry so that they create a particle filter that works with bio-diesel.
side note: Swedish gvmnt give a ~650euro tax deduction (of some kind) to buyers of new diesel cars that order it with a particle filter (but not to light truck/max 3.5tons buyers, which is strange) .
side note: Swedish gvmnt give a ~650euro tax deduction (of some kind) to buyers of new diesel cars that order it with a particle filter (but not to light truck/max 3.5tons buyers, which is strange) .
california has once again secured their lead as daftest state around when it comes to fiscal & energy policy. would they have the farmers quit farming? the truckers quit taking farmed food to california? stop commercial airflight (far worse polluters than commuters)?
buncha goat herders.
buncha goat herders.
I think their policies started because most californians spend 7 hours a day in traffic sucking on everyone elses exhaust pipe, it was a health issue at one point. They seem to have lost their way.
am i missing something here???
does that thing run on top fuel???
over 100% thermal efficiency or what?
He's smoking the wacky weed. Double the horse power, 7 times the gas mileage, 2000?ft pounds of torque??? Maybe he smoking something a little stronger then wacky weed.
He's going from a combustion engine to a generator to storage system to an electric motor, and he expects the gas milage to go up by a factor of seven?
You can't expect the "most advanced country on earth" to actually keep up with japan, china and europe can we...
The California law specifies a 30% in GHG by 2016. If the average fuel economy in the us (20.3 mpg) were raised to the current average fuel economy in Japan (35.3mpg) it would make it with plenty of room to spare. Not to be outdone, Japan is mandating another 20% increase in fuel economy by 2015.
Basically in seven years you won't be able to sell a passenger car in Japan that doesn't get 42 mpg average.
The numbers are accurate... with a twist. The trickery going on there is that he injecting liquid hydrogen into the combustion chamber and not factoring that into the "gallons" in mpg, when liquid hydrogen is a pretty potent power source, very expensive, and takes a lot of energy to produce. However, even if you factor that in, his engines/hybrids are tremendously more efficient AND cleaner than even a turbo-diesel hybrid.
The short version is that the hydrogen, aside from releasing energy in it's own combustion converts a huge amount of the heat (normally lost in an internal combustion engine) back into pressure to drive the piston. If you're familiar with water injection, and the huge benefits you can get from that in a forced induction engine, it is VERY similar except the hydrogen combusts (adding energy) into the water which then acts similar to a water injection system.
Caveat: I've never seen his engines or talked to the guy, but this is the only thing that makes sense based on what I could piece together from the article.
That makes a little more sense, although I'm still not completely convinced.
My engineer side says when someone says they can make a car seven times more efficient and twice as powerful, still burning a hydrocarbon it doesn't add up. You always have a trade off. A lighter car gets better gas milage, but isn't as crash resistant. Make it out of exotic materials and you get the mileage and crash resistance, but the cost goes up.
In the article he's claiming that using essentially the same fuels we use today he can make car that gets seven times the gas milage, and twice the power. And his system involves several conversions mechanical -> electrical -> storage -> electrical -> mechanical. Each step has losses.
I can see ways (costly ways) to double vehicle efficiency and retain the vehicle size, but seven times with a horsepower increase seems way too good to be true.
If he is using liquid hydrogen as a fuel he needs to divulge it. Liquid H2 has a lot more energy per gallon than a hydrocarbon and cost a lot to make (energy as well as money). I'm not sure how much you're really saving. Locally there is a guy that has a hydrogen system that uses gasoline to make the hydrogen, but the up front cost is about as much as the amount of gas the car would burn over it's lifetime at $3.00 a gallon.
I'll believe that when I see it. I think you can safely say that won't happen. Plenty of rev-heads here with gas guzzlers.
looks like he forgot to factor in the "catdick variable"
Well you were right.....only took 2.5 months and we hit the $100 mark.So....I'm watching Bloomberg and oil is at $90 per barrel. I have a question, are high gasoline prices partly due to the US dollar being so week? You hear a lot about global demand but no one every mentions the fact that our money isn't worth nearly as much. Looks like it won't be long before we hit $100
So I've just gone and got myself a cheap commuter bike
And what a bargain price!
Hmm, looks flexy....Well you were right.....only took 2.5 months and we hit the $100 mark.
So I've just gone and got myself a cheap commuter bike
And what a bargain price!
Like a wet noodle!